THE MARSH MARIGOLD AND THE DAISY. 103 



imagine is more likely to be a corruption of this old 

 name Mary-bud. 



Sharing- the plate with the marsh marigold is the 

 well-known daisy, the universal favourite, the centre of 

 so many rural and poetic associations that its insertion 

 must surely seem to have been almost superfluous, though 

 possibly its omission from the ranks of our familiar wild 

 flowers would have been still more unpardonable, since it is 

 one of the commonest of them all. 



Into the wealth of poetical associations that clusters 

 round this little wayside flower we must not here enter, as 

 we have already, in our " Bards and Blossoms/' gone at 

 great length into the subject. Suffice it here to say that 

 no other plant has received so marked a tribute. Words- 

 worth himself truly describes it as " the poets' darling/' 

 Botanically our little flower is the Bellis perennis. The 

 generic name is derived from the Latin bellus, pretty 

 or charming, though, according to .some old writers, it 

 owes . its name to a dryad named Belidis. The specific- 

 name clearly refers to its perennial growth. The common 

 name is a corruption of the old English name day's eye, 

 a name at least as old as Chaucer's day, as, after speaking 

 of its closing each night at the approach of darkness, he 



says 



" Well by reason men it call maie 

 The Daisie, or else the Eye of the Daie." 



It is in Scotland the bairnwort, a sufficiently expressive 

 name as testifying to the joy the children feel in wandering 

 in the meadows and gathering it by the lapful for the 

 manufacture of daisy-chains. It is in France the 

 Marguerite, a word derived from the Lat. margarita, a 

 pearl. St. Louis of France employed as a device on his 



